1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing technique that ejects ink droplets of multiple types of inks on a printing medium to print an image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printers that eject inks from nozzles on a print head have widely been used as an output unit of the computer. There is a known printer that is capable of printing an image to respective ends of printing paper (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Gazette No. 2002-103586). One proposed method to attain such margin-free printing uses ink absorption materials set in grooves of a platen to absorb ink ejected outside the printing paper. Quality-enhancing ink is used to enhance the quality of printed materials, for example, enhancement of color development, water resistance, and light resistance and reduction of a variation in gloss.
The Quality-enhancing ink may, however, be dried up on the surface of the ink absorption materials and interfere with smooth absorption of colored inks into the ink absorption materials. The Quality-enhancing ink is used not for coloring but for improvement of the quality of the printed materials. Partial absence of the Quality-enhancing ink thus does not significantly deteriorate the quality, additionally the deterioration of the quality is rather inconspicuous at the ends of the printed materials.